Jordan felt guilty for plunging this man into a legal problem that didn’t concern him. He tried to convince himself involving Hugh would be an asset—it might even be necessary. Having a third member on their science team might help them uncover whatever caused the fatal problems associated with enhancement use. Unless they could point Baltimore PD’s Bio Unit in the right direction, the police would be happy to send Chris back to prison. They would lose the credibility they had painstakingly built for TheraComp. He couldn’t stand being even partially responsible for either of those outcomes.
Logic had driven every decision he’d made as an enhancement distributor and manufacturer. He had separated his emotions from his choice to place a hit on a suspected rat or someone offering the secrets of their engineered gene cocktails to rival groups. But those playing the game of illegal enhancements knew they were gambling with their lives.
Hugh had no idea.
“You don’t need to come with me,” Jordan said. “In fact, you might want to sit this one out. Take the day off.”
Hugh’s brow creased in lines of worry. “Did I do something wrong?”
“There’s no need to fret.” Jordan sighed. “I just don’t want you to be involved in anything that might land you in hot water.”
“I’m not dumb. I know what you and Chris are up to, and I already helped you dodge the police.”
“But you can forget about those things. You can plead ignorance. You were just doing what the boss said.”
“I’m doing what the boss said now.” Hugh raised an eyebrow. “Look, just tell me where you want to go.” His fingers hovered above the holodisplay on the car’s dash.
Jordan waved dismissively. “I don’t want to put this burden on you. You’re a hard worker and a great tech. I don’t want you to risk your reputation on account of our asses.”
“And I suppose you want me to just hop out of my car and let you take it for a joy ride?”
Jordan sighed. “Hugh...”
“My car, my rules. I’m coming with.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Jordan said. He was about to acquiesce but found he couldn’t do it. Hugh’s intentions might’ve been noble, but his naiveté could get him in trouble. “I can’t let you go with me. Just give me control of the car and get the hell out of here.”
“You won’t even tell me where you’re going?”
Jordan shook his head. “I need to go.”
“Shit.” Hugh slumped back in resignation. His gaze rested somewhere over the dashboard, and his eyes glazed over as he stared into the dark parking garage. “I’m sorry to do this.”
His pulse quickening in sudden alarm, Jordan grabbed the door handle. “Do what?”
Hugh slipped his hand under his seat and pulled out a small, pistol-shaped electric stunner. He pointed it at Jordan. “I need you to tell me where you’re meeting Chris.”
Chapter 22
Hugh directed the vehicle out of the parking garage and set a destination on the car’s holoscreen. He didn’t take his eyes or the stunner off Jordan.
“Tell me where Chris is,” Hugh said. “Please.”
“I’m not giving him up,” Jordan said. Rage burned through him. Hugh had betrayed them.
“Don’t make me do it.” His eyes watery, Hugh clicked the weapon on. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Jordan scowled. “Then don’t.”
Hugh chewed his bottom lip. His nose twitched. It seemed as though an internal conflict raged in the man’s head. Outside, several other men and women in suits exited the Biotech Incubator building. Talking on comm cards, two cops stood by their cruisers.
But the windows of Hugh’s car were at full opacity, and none of these people could see the events in the seemingly innocuous sedan.
“Please.” Hugh’s teeth chattered.
“Why the hell are you doing this?” Jordan said. “Who do you work for?”
“I never wanted to do this.”
“Do what?” Jordan’s voice shook in anger, his face growing hot. “Do what, Hugh?”
“Just tell me where Chris is.”
The car slowed at an intersection. Jordan leered back, his lips pressed tight.
Hugh squeezed the trigger. Electricity coursed through Jordan. His body shook, and pain tore through him.
“Why...why are you doing this?” Jordan choked out the words, his tongue bloated and dry.
“Just tell me where Chris is. That’s all they want to know,” Hugh said. “Please.”
“Who?” Jordan croaked. “Who wants to know?” He straightened up, his jaw clenched. Sweat rolled across his skin. He grimaced when Hugh pointed the stunner at him again.
“Where is Chris?”
Jordan shook his head, and Hugh activated the electric pulse again. Jordan writhed and trembled. He bit down hard on his tongue. Blood filled his mouth. He wanted to scream but couldn’t control his body.
Hugh let go again. His eyes were wide, pleading. “Stop this. Please.” His voice came out in a whimper. “Why won’t you just tell me?” He shook his head. “They told me you were like this. You’re too damn stubborn.”
“Who told you?” Jordan said. Anger filled him, fueled by the lingering pain. He wanted to strangle the man but could see the tech seemed wrought in internal conflict. Taking advantage of the man’s embattled emotions might lead Jordan to determine who had compromised Hugh and why. “Who’s making you do this?”
Turning to him, Hugh’s face contorted in a dour expression. “I wish I could tell you. I wanted to tell you. But they’ll kill me.”
“And they probably want to kill Chris, don’t they?”
“I don’t think so—”
Jordan held up a hand. His fingers trembled. “If you tell them where he is, if you give these people what they want, what do you think they’ll do with you? You’re a loose end.” He shook his head. “They don’t like loose ends.”
“You’re wrong.” Hugh gritted his teeth. He pulled the trigger again.
Pain exploded in Jordan’s muscles. His skin felt like it was on fire, and his body jerked uncontrollably. His head slammed against the window and the headrest.
When Hugh dropped the stunner to his side, Jordan fell back. He tried to open his mouth, but no words rolled across his tongue. Only the taste of blood. He gasped for breath. His body felt steeped in weakness.
“They told me to kill you if you wouldn’t talk.” He adjusted the stunner. “I don’t want to do it. Don’t make me do it.”
Jordan tried to raise a hand to shield himself. But he knew the gesture was futile. “I’ll...I’ll tell you.” He gave Hugh an address.
“Thank you.” Hugh tapped the location into his comm card. “Thank you. They wanted me to kill you, but I couldn’t do that.” He sent the message to whoever waited on the other end.
Jordan’s limbs still shivered, though the pain had mostly subsided. Perspiration covered him, and a metallic taste lingered on his tongue. Eyes narrowed and nostrils flared, he stared hard at Hugh.
The lab tech gazed at the comm card as he awaited a response. It buzzed.
Jordan heaved himself at Hugh. He had little strength left, but his momentum caught the tech off guard. Crushed against the door, Hugh’s grip loosened on the card and the stunner. Jordan shoved one hand against Hugh’s neck and stretched for the weapon with the other.
Hugh grasped at Jordan’s hand and peeled away the man’s fingers. He heaved Jordan off, but it was too late.
Panting and sweating, Jordan pointed the stunner at him. “Now it’s your turn to talk.”
Hugh whimpered and held up his hands. “Don’t hurt me. I swear I didn’t want—”
“Shut up,” Jordan said. “When I said you talk, I didn’t mean you get a free ride to babble. I’ve been in this game much longer than you, and I’m used to pulling teeth to get what I want.”
Fear flashed in Hugh’s eyes. Jordan could tell the man was wondering whether he was speaking in literal or figurative terms. That was exactly
the response he wanted.
“I don’t try to be vindictive, Hugh.” Jordan said, willing his expression to soften. “But I don’t appreciate betrayal. It’s not something I want in my employees.”
Hugh’s brow wrinkled, and he cowered against the seat. “I was forced—”
“I don’t care. If someone threatened you, the proper thing to do would have been to tell myself or Chris. We’re equipped to deal with these types of things.” He jabbed the stunner at Hugh. “Now, you’ve been a good lab tech and helped us over the past several months immensely. I’m willing to forgo a more serious punishment for your transgressions if you prove cooperative.”
Hugh nodded emphatically. His skin remained ashen. “I will, Jordan. I promise. But you have to protect me from them.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” Jordan’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you working for?”
Shaking his head, Hugh frantically waved his hands. “I’m not working for anyone. They came to me, threatened me.”
“Who?”
“A guy. Big dude.” Hugh spread his hands out to indicate the man’s size. “Got to be an enhancer. He cornered me on my way into my apartment one night. Told me he wanted my help.” He clenched his hands together. “I told him I wouldn’t. You got to believe me.”
“How the hell did these people find you?”
Hugh’s cheeks turned a bright red. “I bought enhancements.” His eyes fell to his clasped hands in his lap. His fists tightened until his knuckles turned white. “Energy mods. Supposed to keep me from needing a full night’s sleep and help me stay awake without caffeine. Please don’t hurt me. I just don’t want them to kill me, Jordan. You have to believe me.”
All Hugh’s past enthusiasm and chipper attitude made sense now as Jordan dismissed the man’s begging with a flick of his wrist. “When was this? And what did he want you to help him with?”
“Just a couple weeks ago,” Hugh said. “He wanted me to tell him what you and Chris were up to in the lab, to give him data.”
“Did you?”
Hugh nodded, his eyebrows drawn together in a pathetic expression.
“And that’s who broke in, right?”
Hugh’s eyes darted around the car’s interior. “I don’t know. But probably. They didn’t tell me why they wanted the data. They didn’t tell me what they wanted. I thought that’s all they needed until this morning.”
Jordan gestured for Hugh to continue.
“They told me I should help you guys with your work.”
“Help us? Why?”
“They didn’t tell me why.”
“You want me to believe you were dumb enough to follow their orders without a hint of what they wanted out of the deal?” Jordan’s mind flashed back to the failure of the sequencer, wondering if the tech might’ve had anything to do with its almost catastrophic meltdown. “You sure they didn’t tell you to hamper our efforts? Sabotage something like the sequencer, maybe?”
“I swear, all they told me was whatever you two were doing needed to work. They told me I would be dead if it didn’t.” Hugh shrank into his seat. “Maybe the software malfunctioned, or maybe someone from Baltimore’s Bio Unit did it when they were investigating the lab after the break-in.”
“Why the hell would the police do it? Is there something else you’re not telling me?”
Hugh held his hands up in front of himself as he shivered. “No, I swear. It’s just a guess. It’s probably just an error, a bug. Nothing malicious. I’m sorry.”
Jordan balled his free hand into a fist and stared hard into Hugh’s eyes. The usually plucky lab tech appeared like a neglected puppy waiting for a kick. He seemed too frightened to be clinging to any lies now, and maybe the tech wasn’t so far off from the underlying truth of the matter. Maybe there were some crooked cops working in the Bio Unit. He wouldn’t be surprised, but that didn’t concern him now.
“And when the hell did going after Chris fit into this story?”
“Just a few minutes ago. Shortly before you said we were moving everything. They told me they wanted to know where Chris was and see if you knew.”
“Is there anything you’re forgetting? Anything else you can tell me?”
“I don’t think so. I think that’s everything. Honest.”
The people chasing Chris must be the same ones threatening Hugh. As soon as they’d lost Chris, they had turned to squeezing information out of Jordan. And if Hugh had told him everything, this group might have been after their veterinary therapeutics with the futile hope the genetically engineered viruses would somehow hold the key to curing the cancer afflicting the enhancers. They must have been more desperate than he realized.
As the car rolled onto Route Forty, Jordan glanced back at Hugh. “Where are we headed?”
“I thought it would be safest to get out of the city while all this rolls over.”
Jordan laughed. “This isn’t just going to ‘roll over.’ We’re not talking about a summer thunderstorm here. This is a full-blown hurricane, and I don’t think we’ve even seen the worst of it.”
“But they said they only needed Chris. That was it. Then they would leave me alone.”
Jordan rubbed a hand over his head. “I don’t believe that for a second. Besides, they aren’t going to find Chris.”
“What do you mean?”
“You really think I’d give Chris up?” Jordan shook his head. “I’ve been through worse and kept my lips tight.”
“Then...where did I send them?”
“My penthouse. One big-ass, empty apartment. Security guards. Home security system. They probably know how to avoid those things, but it’s a lot of work. And they’re going to be pissed when no one’s home.”
“What about us? They’ll come after me.” Hugh erupted into a series of shivers, and his face went white. “They’re tracking my comm card.”
With the stunner still pointed at the man, Jordan reached across and yanked the tech’s card out of his pocket. He granted his own comm card access to the car’s computer system and then bent Hugh’s until it split in half. He broke it into smaller fragments until a confetti pile of plastic and silicon lay in his palm. After lowering the window, he let the broken shards flutter out into the wind. “There. Problem solved.”
Jordan almost dialed Chris’s number before remembering Chris no longer carried his actual comm card. His friend had a prepaid data card. And he had called Jordan anonymously, preventing him from being tracked. That also meant Jordan had no idea what number he needed to connect with Chris. He frowned and input a destination into the car’s computer.
“Where are we going?” Hugh asked.
The car pulled off of Route Forty and onto a side street lined with cramped row houses.
“If these guys are smart,” Jordan said, “they won’t waste too much time. The second place they’ll want to look, unfortunately, is an obvious candidate.”
“Your old company labs?” Hugh’s words came out tentatively.
Jordan nodded and sighed. “See? If a guy like you can figure that out, I’m afraid our friends are going to want to head in that direction, too.”
Hugh gulped.
Jordan patted him on the shoulder. “Yep. I’ve got to beat them there.”
“How...how are you getting there? Am I going too?”
He scrutinized Hugh. “Sorry, but I don’t think I can trust you.”
The tech shook, and his face remained pale.
Jordan flicked up the intensity on the stunner and fired.
Chapter 23
From the tracker card, Chris called a cab. His clothes, soaked in sweat, still clung to his body. Dirt and grime covered what was once a clean white t-shirt. He waited on Charles Street, self-conscious of both his appearance and his smell.
A group of suits, leaving a late working lunch from The Green Olive, quieted as they saw him. One woman whispered something to one of the men, and they both laughed. Another man, walking alone, caught Chris’s eyes and immediatel
y turned away as he strolled past. A taxi rolled up, and Chris slipped into the back seat, relieved to finally be free of the stares.
“Enter your destination, please.” The voice echoing within the cab’s interior possessed a slightly robotic twinge.
Chris gestured over the holodisplay and entered an address near Holabird Avenue and Broening. Maybe he was being overly cautious, but he didn’t want the cab’s navigation unit to record the precise location of the old Equest Advantage facility. A few years ago, the underground lab beneath the building had hosted an array of automated, self-replicating gene production systems for a variety of enhancements extensive enough to rival the products offered by any legitimate biotech company. If the police scrounged up a warrant, he didn’t want to lead them directly to a place still ripe with the evidence to send him on a permanent vacation behind bars.
The cab dropped him off on Holabird, and he sauntered out into the glaring sun. In this neighborhood, fewer trees lined the sidewalks, and instead of colorful storefronts and awnings over the entrances to cozy restaurants, large warehouses and squat factories rested behind ominous chain-link fences topped with barbed wire. The surrounding residential areas were noted for having one of the highest per-capita murder rates in the greater Baltimore metropolitan area.
Because of this, the land could be bought for bargain prices, and the city even offered tax incentives for industrial businesses to set up shop. Jordan hadn’t balked at the opportunity to save a few bucks and decided a company like Equest Advantage selling enhancements for racing horses wouldn’t need to impress potential buyers with an attractive neighborhood. The effects of the gene mods and money flowing in through races and the resulting studding of those stallions had been enough.
Weeds and grass sprouted between cracks in the sidewalk. Chris walked toward the unassuming building that formerly housed Equest. No one around here would bother asking a disheveled, grimy man what business he had in the neighborhood. That is, if he even ran into anyone.
He waited at the front gate of the complex. Without his normal comm card, he could not unlock it, nor could he open the doors to the building. He didn’t feel like scaling the chain-link fence and trying to squeeze through the barbed wire, either.
The Black Market DNA Series: Books 1-3 Page 38